Back to the Grind(stone) pt. 2

So I absolutely love blogging. I find during the time of writing, I am able to reflect upon my heart and reexamine the things I wanted to say. Usually I gain another insight. Sometimes I just stop writing altogether because I decide it does not need to be shared. (This happened more in the Xanga days. I am glad those posts did not get published...) And sometimes I find myself going off on a tangent, a good one, that should be followed through upon. This last post was kind of a victim of that, so I separated my thoughts so I could 1) provide ease for the reader in length of post (which must be a joke), and 2) I myself could stop typing because I got tired. Yeah, it happens. You now know my heart.

Part one of this "series" hits more on the title's "Back to the Grind". Things are picking up once again. Life that rested over the holidays is once again in full swing. Soon enough, we will see creation reviving itself as it does annually, launching us into the beautiful, warm, pleasant, temperate, not cold, Chaco-weather, I-can-stop-freezing-to-death season of the year.

I find this introduction rather prophetic for this post, for when I started my last, the title was accurately stated for my heart: Back to the Grind(stone). I love keeping people updated on my life and ministry, and I felt like this was to be the title of my next post while I was praying one day. Back to the Grind(stone). Back to the grindstone.

Historically, one type of a grindstone would be used in the sharping of metals. Pressure and friction between the stone and a piece of metal sharpened the object; the sharper you wanted it, the more grinding it would take. This holiday season provided some grinding moments for myself. (And not because of family. I mean this sincerely. No one get any ideas.) I began to notice how the lack of discipline in one area would provide a lack in another. What seemed okay at the time I realized by the end was the very reason and open door to the attacks I was encountering. The big one: video games. Video games, I believe, in and of themselves are not evil, but when one allows themselves to be sucked in and become passive and apathetic to the world around them, it is bound to cause issues.

The lesson I learned is already stated: the lack of discipline in one area will lead to a lack in another. We must realize that we cannot separate our lives into pockets. I remember this illustration from Freshman year about emotions in the two genders: females are pancakes, and males are waffles. When you put syrup on pancakes, it runs everywhere (unless you poke holes in them like me), but syrup stays in the little compartments on waffles.

Now, I do not wish to discuss any truth to that, but let us use the same illustration having the syrup being the love of God. Honestly, it's like an infection. The authentic love of God should be absolutely contagious and run over and into every part of your life like a pancake. However, we are a people coming from a broken background but now being perfected by God; often times we have built up walls to protect ourselves and compartmentalize everything, so when the love comes, it only impacts a few spheres of our lives. But let us remember, this is the love of God! It's big and boundless, so He is going to press upon those walls, those compartments until we break and let him into the other areas of our lives.

Now, I like syrup. Love it. I used to eat pancakes with my syrup (trying to cut back a little as I grow older). I know some like eating pancakes and waffles without syrup, but I would say the baseline is syrup makes them more enjoyable. So imagine the compartments of the waffle that have yet to feel the love of God enter them? Imagine eating that dry, bread-like substance. I do not like it. I do not find it very good. That is how it is when we do not allow the Father to have full access to our lives!

It is ironic: a broken people must become more broken so they can be perfected. We were made for perfection. We are called God's masterpiece! Wow! Yet we have been deceived into thinking we can rebuild ourselves, building our walls so we do not have to hurt, feel pain, or deal with the things we do not wish to.

God stands at the door and knocks, longing to come in. If you let Him, He will come and repair all the brokenness, but you first have to recognize that it is broken, you cannot fix it, only He can, and ask Him to do it. It might not be easy, it might not be fun, but in the end, you will feel better than you have ever felt in your life!

(I cannot think of a way to explain how this process feels than how C.S. Lewis says it in two different books: The Great Divorce and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Both of these are great reads, albeit very different, and the specific stories can be found at the end of Chapter 11 and the end of Chapter 7 in the respective books.)